


Two hearts between two fronts

by Greensmilodon



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-20 14:03:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13148205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Greensmilodon/pseuds/Greensmilodon
Summary: He knew that he would not be able to come out of the war and not be broken. She knew that doing the honourable thing would break her heart.





	Two hearts between two fronts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [coolhandjennie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/coolhandjennie/gifts).



> Merry Christmas, Jennie! 
> 
> I've edited this fic more than once, but it hasn't been betaed since it was kept a secret for a Secret Santa exchange.
> 
> For anyone wondering about the two pairing tags: I've tried keeping the fic canon-compliant and shippy at the same time. I suppose you can read it as a romantic ship or as a very close friendship. Your choice!

Jaime stood inside his tent staring at the retreating form of Brienne. He missed her already and her words still echoed in his brain. “There’s honour in you, Ser Jaime.” Her way of having high expectations about people, especially about him, was infuriating, but, at the same time, it was exactly what Jaime had needed. If only it didn’t make everything so much more complicated than it already was.  
  
He wasn’t so naive as to believe that he could avoid the war. Whether Cersei wanted to believe it or not, a big part of it had already started and they were all right in the middle of it. Maybe it had never even ended after Robert’s rebellion. Jon Snow was in the North and Daenerys was approaching from the East. If she truly had three dragons, they were fucked. He had no time for honour. They had too many enemies to give himself the luxury of thinking about honour. Wars weren’t honourable anyway. If they were, cities would have never been sacked, women would have never been raped and babies would have never been killed to avoid them growing up and seeking vengeance.  
  
And yet, the thought of someone as pure as Brienne thinking well of him gave him hope that there was some future for him after the war. Maybe even a happy future, one in which he was living instead of just surviving. One in which he wasn’t always looking over his shoulder, worrying all the time that someone, maybe even someone he considered an ally, would kill his family.  
  
This was a good thought, but thinking of his family brought him back to the present. What would be the price of the war? If they lost, Tommen would die. No new king would allow him to live. If they won, Cersei would surely want to eliminate all the Stark allies and this included Brienne, since she was fighting for Sansa’s kin. The one person who would never stab him in the back. If Brienne ever killed him, she would do it looking at his face in a fair duel. As fair as it could be with his current lack of fighting skills anyway.  
  
Jaime hoped that Brienne would succeed in convincing the Black Fish to surrender the castle. If she didn’t, he would have to fight her and he knew that it would not end well for her. Whether he lived to see another day or not, she would die. The numbers were on the Lannister side and he was certain that she would not run. Her damn honour would compel her to fight for Sansa’s family no matter what. She had even told him that much. Her damn honour would also compel her not to surrender, even if the battle was hopeless. Jaime was certain of that as well.  
  
What was she thinking trying to convince the Black Fish to give up his home? Because it was the man’s home. He saw that, even if he had not been willing to concede Brienne’s point. Even if Brynden Tully were not the most stubborn man in Westeros, he had nothing else to fight for. Only the castle.  
  
On second thought, if there was anyone able to change Tully’s mind, that person was Brienne. She was very good with guilt and, from what he had heard, Sansa was truly in trouble.  
  
But if she didn’t succeed… No, he couldn’t think like that. He couldn’t consider the possibility of her dead body lying on the stairs of the castle. Or on the floor of some dark hallway. He would not be able to take the gloating chants of victory that some of his men would shout. Or the alternative. It was a big castle and he could not be everywhere. If they won and by some miracle Brienne survived the battle, he knew what many of the Lannister soldiers would do to her. He had saved her from a similar fate once and he was willing to give his other hand if it meant preventing Brienne from being raped, but he wasn’t sure if he would be able to arrive in time if it happened now.  
  
Jaime closed the flap of the tent and exhaled. She deserved better than that.

  
  


~*~*~*~

  
  


Jaime Lannister confused her. The first time she had met him, the only thing she had known about him was that he had broken his oath when he had killed the king he had sworn to protect. He had disgusted her. Jaime had been everything she had always hated.  
  
Then, in that bathhouse in Harrenhal, she had seen a side of Jaime that she doubted that many people truly knew. And she had believed him when he had told her why he had killed Aerys Targaryen. It was no secret that the king had been mad, but it had horrified her to learn what he had planed.  
  
Brienne didn’t want to think what she would have done had she been in Jaime’s place. Would she have killed and beheaded her father? Would she have betrayed all the people in King’s Landing? The Kingsguard oath was to the king, but she had always interpreted an unwritten promise to protect the people that king represented. Would she have let so many innocent people be burnt to death? For the first time in her life, honour hadn’t been black and white.  
  
When Jaime had fainted, she had rushed to catch him and it wasn’t the promise made to Catelyn Stark or just decency what had moved her to act. She had cared about what happened to him. And she had owed him. After all, he had lost a hand for her. She was certain that losing a hand hadn’t been part of Jaime’s plan, but if it hadn’t been for him, she would have been raped and severely beaten.  
  
Now, he had agreed to let her try to convince the Black Fish to surrender his castle. Brienne doubted that any other person would have had the same amount of success with Jaime. She knew that the only reason he had listened to her was because it had been her. She didn’t have time to analyse why this small fact made her feel happy and hopeful.

  
  


~*~*~*~

  
  


The battle had been avoided, but he couldn’t find her. It was as if she had disappeared, but at least he had not come across her dead body in some badly lit hallway, nor had he heard any of the men be the kind of happy that many lonely soldiers sounded when they had a female prisoner. Then again, the Black Fish was nowhere to be found either.  
  
He needed to be alone and to get air, as far away of the rest of the soldiers as possible. They had won and were going to be going back home. He could not allow them to see him worried, especially not Bron. Bron could be discreet about things, but Jaime didn’t want to give him something else for the sellsword to hold against him in the future.

  
  


~*~*~*~

  
  


Brienne kept looking back, ready to face any attacker, while Podrick rowed as silently as possible in the dark. When the Black Fish had told her that he wouldn’t surrender his castle, all her hopes had plummeted. As she had told Jaime, honour compelled her to fight for Sansa’s kin and to fight him. For the first time since Jaime had revealed his most private secret in those baths, she could see a bit of the dilemma that he had faced. It was not that a similar situation, but she had managed to put herself between two armies. On one side, the promise she had made to Sansa’s mother and Sansa herself. Brienne hadn’t spent that much time with her, but she knew that she wanted to protect her.  
  
On the other side was Jaime. The more she thought about Jaime, the more she was confused. Not just about him, but about her own feelings. It had been with a heavy heart that she had told him that she might have to fight him.  
  
Brienne didn’t know where all these feelings came from. Fighting, she knew and understood, but this was a completely new situation for her. Her position in the upcoming war and in the current battle should be clear and yet, it wasn’t. Not in her heart, even though she would do what had to be done. She would keep her word and do the honourable thing, even if it would break her heart to do so.

  
  


~*~*~*~

  
  


So the Black Fish had been found dead in the lower part of the castle. That should be interesting and important, but he didn’t care. He was relieved. Relieved that they had found that man, but not Brienne. His heart had stopped for a second when he had heard the word “found”, thinking “woman” was going to be what followed. It hadn’t, so there was still hope. He needed someone to believe in him if he was going to survive this war.  
  
Jaime didn’t know what made him look down. He thought he had heard something in the water, but he was so high above it, that he could have imagined it. But he looked down. And he saw her. She was alive and well and with the Payne boy at her side. He smiled and made a mental note to say a short prayer for the Black Fish, as he was now certain that that man had helped them escape. Brynden Tully had never been a coward and hiding in the lower parts of the castle had never been his style, so he must have been giving Brienne and Payne enough time to escape unnoticed.  
  
Jaime could feel hope going through his body. They would not be seen. He would made sure of that. The king’s army would not stop them from leaving quietly under the protection of the night. He would protect her from Cersei while he still could. After all, one more person fighting for the Starks was unlikely to swing the balance of the war in any direction.  
  
The thought of Cersei and Tommen made his good spirits plummet as suddenly as they had appeared.  
  
He saw it clearly for the first time since he had had to kill the Mad King. He was between two fronts. No matter who won the war -and he was certain that a war was coming-, he would lose. All those years ago he had chosen his family over his sworn duty. That choice had been very easy. It had been his family or a madman who was willing to burn every single person in King’s Landing alive. He hadn’t thought twice before he had stabbed Aerys Targaryen in the back. It might not have been the most honourable way of doing it, but it had been effective.  
  
Now, however, things were different. This time, it was between love and honour. The choice should have been very easy as well. The problem was that honour was something very tangible now. As tangible as Brienne of Tarth, the woman who looked at him and saw the kind of knight he had wanted to become when he had joined the Kingsguard, before he had become disillusioned with the concept of a knight, before he had become the Kingslayer.  
  
There was something more about Brienne, something he could not allow himself to think about if he wanted to remain sane once the war was over. If he survived what was to come, the possibility of seeing Brienne’s broken body in the battlefield was very real. Maybe even the possibility of having to kill her himself. He couldn’t allow himself to feel for her what he knew he felt deep inside his heart if he wanted to protect his family. Feelings were a luxury he couldn’t afford to have. Not if he wanted to keep his only remaining child safe. He would not lose Tommen. He was a good young man, just as Myrcella had been. Jaime knew that he would not be able to come out of the war and not be broken. His loyalties were too divided inside his heart, Cersei on one side and Brienne on the other, but he would make sure that his son was safe and that the young man still had a mother. Even if that meant having a broken heart forever.  
  



End file.
